Finally got around to making my first post to this thread. Has been a busy past few months and I'm finally coming up for air.
I should have said this like six weeks ago, but...well, what a summer it was for the Habs.
Alex Radulov, who was their main offensive sparkplug last season, gone to Dallas, a victim of his own (and his agent's) greed. (Looks like he really was a merc after all.)
Andrei Markov, who was until the end of last season the longest-serving player on the roster, and STILL their best defenceman and most accurate passer at 38, gone to the KHL, a victim of Marc Bergevin's boneheaded intransigence. (At least he had the decency to say that signing with another NHL club after spending his whole career with the Habs didn't feel right.)
Alexei Emelin, hardest-hitting defenceman but who had become a defensive liability, let go in the expansion draft and claimed by Vegas.
Nathan Beaulieu, traded to Buffalo for...basically a bag of pucks.
And a whole raft of new faces, including one in his second go-round with the Habs.
Jonathan Drouin, from Tampa, intended to replace Radulov. The aim seemed to be to mold him into the French-speaking #1 centreman this team has craved for so long. But they had to give up the future of their defensive corps by trading away Mikhail Sergachev to get him.
Two aging veterans who had even less left in the tank than Markov in the oft-injured Ales Hemsky and Mark Streit (his second stint with the Habs), the hope being the latter could replace Markov. And David Schlemko from San Jose, a man who's spent almost as much time in the AHL as NHL, and who proved to be damaged goods and still hasn't played a single game in a Habs uniform.
The big free-agent signing was not the #1 centreman the Habs have needed since...oh, 1993-1994...but Karl Alzner from the Caps. The hope seemed to be he would be an upgrade on Emelin...
Whipping boy Alex Galchenyuk, who had his best season when the Habs were taking 2 years ago (you know, the one that saw the P.K. trade), re-signed to what amounts to a bridge contract, and still on eggshells with the coach and GM.
And the biggest news: Carey Price becomes the richest goaltender in NHL history, with a contract eclipsing even Lundqvist's.
All of the trade-deadline acquisitions from last season, with the exception of Jordie Benn, are gone--retired, released, or traded.
And what did Habs fans get for all this? For losing their most complete two-way player, most stalwart defender, and assembling an old, slow defensive corps that seemed to be intended to be a meat shield around Price--a whole corps that would play just like their GM did when he was a player? And then not using training camp and the pre-season to try and assemble this crew into a cohesive team, but rather to evaluate who would be sent to the newly-relocated farm team?
Well, now 12 games into the season, and just look at the standings.
The Habs have not started this poorly since the third year of WORLD WAR II.
It's almost like Marc Bergevin looked at the way his team played in their first-round series loss to the Rangers, decided he wanted more of THAT, and set about building a team that couldn't move and couldn't score. And that's pretty much what they've shown so far.**
Streit was done after 2 games and released. (Markov? Almost a PPG pace for Ak Bars Kazan in the KHL)
Hemsky? Back on IR, where he's spent most of the past several seasons.
Every defender on the team, with the exception of Benn--who seemed to fit like a glove last season but who has been just awful so far--in minus territory.
A first line that on paper looks like it should be one of the most feared offensive forces in the league, but on most nights has been a Ghostly Trio. The experiment with Drouin at centre has been an early failure.
It's been...goals? What are these magical things of which you speak? Especially hard for them to find in California, it seems.
But the biggest enigma so far...Carey Price. His numbers so far aren't even respectable for an AHL goalie. It's like he's come down with what Habs fans would call Plekanec-itis--sign a big fat contract and then your performance falls off a cliff. It's like he's playing with ADD out there, he can't keep track of the puck at all anymore. And a big contributor to that, IMO, is that "meat shield" mentality--anywhere from a third to half of the goals he's let in are on deflections off his own players, just sitting there and cutting his sight lines. That was a problem last year with Michel Therrien's PK system, but now it's affecting Price's 5-on-5 play too.
If not for how badly the Coyotes were doing, I would say that the Habs would be this year's version of last year's Avs.
**Well, they have won their past 2 games. Especially tonight's 8-3 demolition of the Sens, always satisfying. But 3 of those victories have come against other bottom-feeders playing their backup goalies--and still took EVERYTHING THEY HAD. This was the first time this season the Habs actually chased the opposing team's first-string goaltender, and one who's been a killer against them in the past.
But still too early to say they've turned a corner. Unless they can somehow go on a storybook run like the Jackets did last season, they lost this season in the first 10 games.
Habs fans had better settle in for a LONG season.
cheers,
Gabe
